Other people use Presidential Libraries for research purposes, as these sites contain archives of the documents seen and created by the Presidential administration. Indeed, according to a federal law passed in 1978, all presidential records must be preserved -- from handwritten notes, to text records, to audio-visual material to classified documents. A 60,000 square foot archive has already been created to store the records of out-going President George W. Bush, pending the creation of his library.
What does this have to do with me and my filing issues? Not much, actually.
Let's face it. I am not now, nor have I ever been, the President of the United States. I am pretty sure no federal law will ever require that I preserve every bank statement or cable bill related to my household administration. So why am I keeping all of my records? Why?
This has to stop.
In her Homekeeping Handbook, Martha provides rules for preserving documents, and they are not new to me. But since Martha is guiding my life for this month, it's finally time to pay attention. Basically, birth certificates, passports, marriage certificates and the like should be kept indefinitely -- hopefully in a safe deposit box. Matters like mortgage records, real estate deeds, vehicle titles, and investment information should be kept as long as they are active. Income tax records and anything related to them should be kept for seven years. Most everything else can be thrown out after one year!
So now, I have a lot of un-filing to do.
I am sure I will face moments of regret or uncertainty. What if someone needs to know, for some reason, at some future date, that a long distance phone call to my parents in January, 2004 lasted 16 minutes and 43 seconds? Dare I really throw out that bill? I guess I'll have to leave it to the phone company to preserve those records for me. I'm sure their file drawers are bigger than mine.
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